AZREIA members are doing deals, great deals, every day. Non-AZREIA members, investors that live here and investors from numerous other countries are doing deals, great deals every day. Every month thousands of deals are done. Are you getting your share?
Notice I didn’t say “fair” share. There is nothing fair about real estate investing. There is only the deal and who gets it. There is only the investor that has the process or system in place that quickly analyses the deal and makes a fast decision at that investor’s acceptable level of risk.
Too many times in the last few months I am hearing stories from investors about the deal they lost. In every case I ask one question, “Why?” This is the most important question to ask. I don’t ask it for me or my knowledge although that would be good to know. I ask it so the investor will be sure to figure out what went wrong. Why did they lose the deal? Was it price? Was it timing? Was it terms? Was it attitude? Was it ineffective systems? Was it a process that no longer works in today’s hyper, multi-bid market? Why?
If you analyze your lost deals and determine what went wrong then you can make the necessary changes to your model and start to win the deals. Losing is never fun. Losing because you didn’t keep up with the market is foolish.
Right now everything is sensitive. By that I mean it’s like looking into an extremely bright light. You know how you react when coming out of a dark environment into bright sunlight. You recoil a little, put your hand up to shield your eyes and try to navigate. Navigations hard, but it isn’t impossible. Thing are changing so fast and you have to change with them. You might need new or additional partners or additional sources of funds. Maybe you need to consider other markets or different strategies or multiple strategies. Maybe another type of real estate would work better for you.
My point is this, when you hear about a deal another investor closed; ask yourself why you didn’t get it. What did that investor do differently than you? Are you willing to do what the successful investor did or not? Or, are you satisfied with telling stories about the deals you missed out on.
I am not saying you shouldn’t be happy for the investor that was successful. We should celebrate other’s successes. But, you should learn from them, as well. Question everything, but most importantly question yourself. You are either willing to do what is necessary to be successful or you’re not.
Not a month goes by when I’m not approached by a member that tells me they watched the Market Update and reacted to the trends. They moved to REOs because of what the trends showed, they cranked back up their short sale engine based on the emerging trends, they went into rentals and started into seller financing because of the market conditions, and they moved back to rehabs because they could analyze the trends on what was going to happen with supply and pricing.
The point is the data is there. AZREIA members are primarily transactional investors. They want to know what is happening and what is likely to happen next, so they can adjust their strategy and model. You don’t have to be a transactional investor for the data to work for you. You can stay in one type of real estate with one strategy and use the data to maximize your profit.
Stay current on the market. Use information to speed up your decision process and be ready to strike when it is the right deal for you. Then your deal can be the one that everyone is asking themselves why they didn’t get.
Smarter investing,
Alan Langston